


Red Cherry Wine

by dl_arah



Category: Original Work
Genre: Accidental Rape, Angst, Author wants to fight someone, Drunkeness, F/M, Happy ending though, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, chastity rings, referenced/attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 20:53:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10395864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dl_arah/pseuds/dl_arah
Summary: When a person turned 10, a marker would appear on their wrist. The marker, a black or white moon, would start as a new moon, and phase to a full moon. The phases happened like the real moon, but spread out a lot further apart.Both markers phased at the same time, whenever two soul mate got close enough to each other.Upon meeting, the marker would become a permanent full moon, a simple black or white circle.There was one problem: the phasing hurt. What would start a simple burn, soon became a blinding heat that usually sent a person to his knees.Sometimes though, in rare cases, the markers didn't phase at all. This usually meant that the person's soul mate was no longer living.





	

**Author's Note:**

> there's nothing explicit in here, and this is based off of Hozier's 'Red Cherry Wine,' because the video is beautiful.

When a person turned 10, a marker would appear on their wrist. The marker, a black or white moon, would start as a new moon, and phase to a full moon. The phases happened like the real moon, but spread out a lot further apart.  
Both markers phased at the same time, whenever two soul mates got close enough to each other.  
Upon meeting, the marker would become a permanent full moon, a simple black or white circle.  
There was one problem: the phasing hurt. What would start a simple burn, soon became a blinding heat that usually sent a person to his knees.  
Sometimes though, in rare cases, the markers didn't phase at all. This usually meant that the person's soul mate was no longer living.

Ara's marker hadn't phased since she was eleven, freezing in its Waning Crescent moon.  
At first, she was sad. She cried on her mother's shoulder, cried at school, but as time passed, she got tired of the constant pity.  
In college, she got none of it, her classmates not caring about her soulmate. She was a dance major, with a business minor, and had her own studio to practice in.  
Her parents supported her choice fully, and we're even paying for her to move into an apartment.  
Little did Ara know, her new neighbor had a white marker, stuck on a Waning Crescent.

She's just finished unpacking, just sat down, when the heat began. It crept up her arm, and Ara cried out, clutching her arm, tears of pain spilling down her pale skin. Her chastity ring was cold on her wrist. It was the last thing she felt before she passed out.

The frantic knocking on her door was what, eventually woke her up. The pain was still there, but not as hot. Ara jolted awake, scrambling to the entryway.  
She barely notices the almost complete circle on her wrist, as she puts her hand on the knob.  
When she opened the door, the heat returned a little more, sealing off her marker.  
Her soulmate, tall and coffee brown haired, stood, silent, in the doorway.

His white full moon became a fidget point, Walker rubbing his thumb over it, when he became stressed out, or bored.  
Ara. Ara. Ara.  
The name rolled through his head, throwing him out of focus.  
His soulmate lived right next door to him, and he had no idea how to process the information.  
They had a date scheduled, at a coffee shot nearby , and he really couldn't wait. 

The date at Luna Blue, the coffee shop, goes well, with them planning for another date.  
And then a third follows. Then a fourth.  
The two become more of best friends, than lovers.  
Walker hadn't kissed Ara, always holding back, with a look at her hand. Her chastity ring. He hadn't even asked her, if she was ready.  
She doesn't mind, kissing doesn't really matter. Still, it was cute to watch him get flustered, and see the longing look in his eyes.

On their seventh "date," they meet Kennedy and Jax, another soulmate couple.  
Kennedy and Ara soon became best friends, became inseparable, Walker and Jax, no less.  
A year after they meet, Walker, finally, asked Ara to be his girlfriend.  
She says yes.

Everything went smooth for two months, until the night Ara's AC breaks.  
Walker had gone to a party, and Ara was waiting for him to get back, so she could spend the night at his place.  
He came home drunk, and she doesn't care.  
She knocked on his door, bag of clothes in hand.  
He answered, beer breath fawning out on her face.  
He pulled her in, no words exchanged, and closed the door.

He had no memory of the night before, only waking up, sweaty and naked.  
And then he looked over, and saw Ara sitting in the corner, knees to her chest, staring straight ahead, naked, too, save for a dirty tee shirt.  
He sees the bruises trailing along her inner thighs.  
She's crying, staring at the wall across the room, black and blue fawning out across her cheek bone and eye.  
Walker got up quickly, walking over to her, kneeling. He notes the way she finched further back into the corner.  
"Ara? Ara, are you okay?"  
He will never forget the way her swollen eyes widen, when he went to touch her shoulder.  
It's then he knew.  
He did this. 

Kennedy texted him, frantically, asking where Ara is.  
He tells her, and she finds them, hours later, with walker begging for forgiveness, tears of self-hatred trailing down his face.  
Kennedy gasped, and, ignoring Walker, wrapped her arms around Ara.  
What happened?

She was raped. Raped and hit by her own boyfriend.  
Ara knew he was drunk. Drunk and strong, but she didn't know how drunk. How strong.  
Still, it was unforgivable.  
Her heart ached every time she thought of Walker crying, begging. Her heart leapt up to her throat when she remembered the boy punching her.  
Her throat closes, with her heart still trapped, when she remembers her chastity ring, sitting on her dresser.  
Raped or not, she no longer has the privilege of wearing the silver band.  
Ara would cry, and tried to come up with ways to forget.  
She dances.

There are many days Kennedy finds her in the studio, the blonde girl having been there for hours, with no food, only herself, music, and an old water bottle.  
Her bruises have faded, but she still cakes on her make up.

Ara would see Walker everywhere, and she had to pretend she didn't see the vertical lines running down his arms, covering his marker.  
She tried, but she couldn't ignore the angry welts. She tried, and then brought it up when the hurt overwhelmed her.  
"I wish I had never done those things to you Ara. You didn't deserve them. I don't deserve-"  
"I know what you wish. Please, though, and stop. You don't need to add to the pain I'm going through by killing yourself."  
Sometimes, when she thinks about the hurt that flashed through his eyes, and feels guilty. But the cuts faded to scars, and she never saw any new ones pop up.

It had been two months, and Ara still danced to forget.  
She got skinnier, and Kennedy would still bring her food.  
Most of it ended up in the trash, because Ara is just not hungry.  
She's started going to Walkers apartment, to try and mend the break, to at least become friends with Walker again.  
He won't touch her, and finches at even the littlest of contact. He would barely look at her, too.  
"I've let you back in. You don't have to mentally scold you self if you touch my arm. I'm not broken, just a little bent, and healing. I'm working on forgiving you," she tells him, one day.  
"I will never forgive myself."

Eventually, her habit of not eating caused her to pass out. Coincidentally, it had been while she'd been walking down the stairs. She tumbled, unconscious, down the concrete stair, hitting her head.

"She may lose parts of her memory."

She does.  
When she wakes up, she knew nothing of the night her virginity was stolen.  
She just giggled, upon seeing Walker, and wrapped him in a hug.  
He cried.

"Why aren't you happy?" Kennedy hissed, two weeks later.  
"You can go back, back to before, pretend it didn't happen. Come on, Walker. She doesn't remember."  
"She never forgot," he answere3d, thinking of the night he saw her crying, staring at something in her hand.  
Her chastity ring, the tiny thing, sat sadly in her palm.  
"When she woke up, she didn't ask about it, and she doesn't wear it anymore. She never forgot, Kennedy."

"I know."  
Ara looks at him.  
"You never forgot. Why?"  
"Walker, I needed to let it go, and realized the only way to do that was to make you forget. I wanted things to go back to normal."  
"Normal? Ara, I hit you. I put bruises on your face. I took the one precious thing that you can never get back. Things can never be normal, as long as one of us knows."  
"Do you love me, Walker?"  
"Yes. God knows it. I love you, but it doesn’t excuse anything. It doesn't make up for anything."  
"To me, it makes up for everything. I love you, too, so please, forgive yourself. I forgive you. Just let it go. Please?"  
He sighed.

Walker walks up behind Ara. She's taking the make-up off her eye, tears welling up.  
It's swollen, purple, and bring back unpleasant memories.  
Ara looks up at him, smiling.  
"Swellings going down," Walker kisses her forehead.  
It was an accident, their son throwing the baseball, a little too hard.  
The six-year-old boy cried hard, blubbering. He hadn't meant it, and he was only scolded.  
"How's Kesey," she asks.  
"He's sleeping. He was very tired after all of that."  
He picks her hand up, putting it to his mouth. There's a new ring on her finger, and she's got the other two on her bed aide dresser.  
A promise ring.  
An engagement ring.  
The one on her finger: a wedding ring.  
"I love you, you know," he murmurs.  
She nods.  
"Poor baby. He seemed more hurt than I did," she sighs, standing.  
He kisses her.  
"I love you, too," she whispers, "So much."

**Author's Note:**

> That last paragraph was basically, like, ten years later, after college and stuff


End file.
